Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1903 · PDF PAGE 38

The Star and the Garter

The will to live : and these frail friends, The women I shall draw you, fail Of more importance to earth’s ends Than to my life a finger-nail. ’Twere pain, no doubt, were torn away One, a minute distemperature. I spend a fraction of the day Plying the art of manicure. But always beats the heart: the more I polish, tint, or carve, I ask Strength from the heart’s too generous store To bend my fingers to the task. Cease : I am broken: nought remains. The brain’s electric waves are still ; No blood beats eager in the veins; The mind sinks deathward…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 36

The Star and the Garter

…. Yes! I see The roseate embroidery Yonder—I know: it seems to give The lie to me in throat and teeth. That is the surface: underneath I live in you: in you I live. 34

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1903 · PDF PAGE 24

The Star and the Garter

IX WILL you not come: the unequal fever Of Paris hold our lives for ever? Were it not better to exceed The avenging thought, the unmeaning deed, Make one strong act at least ? How small, How idiot our lives! These folk That think they live—which dares at all To act? The suicide that broke His chain, and lies so waxen pale In the Morgue to-day? Did he then fail ? Ay, he was beaten. But to live, Slink on through what the world can give, That is a hound’s life too. For me, The suicide stands grand and free Besides these others. Was it fear Drove h…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 19

The Star and the Garter

…Or be our lonely haunt the sand Of the Sahara : let us go Where some oasis, subtly planned For love, invites the afterglow! There let us live alone, except Some bearded horseman, pennoned, ride Over the waste of ochre, swept By wind in waves, and sit beside c 17

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1903 · PDF PAGE 72

The Star and the Garter

…w! For this recede, Hide with me in the deepest caves Of some volcanic island ; bleed Our hearts out by the ambient waves Of Coromandel; live alone, Hermits of love and pity, far Where tumbled banks of ice are thrown, Watched by yon solitary star, Sirius ; there to work together In sorrow and in joy but one, In black inhospitable weather, Or fronting the Numidian sun, Equally minded; till the hour Strike of release, and we obtain The passionless and holy power, Making us masters over pain, And lords of peace: the rays of light We fling to the a…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 35

The Star and the Garter

XIV AccerT me asl am! I give All you can take. If you dislike Some fragments of the life I live, They are not yours: I scorn to strike One sword-swift pang against your peace. See! I'ma mountaineer. Release That spirit from your bonds: or come With me upon the mountains, cease This dull round, this addition sum Of follies we call France: indeed Cipher! And if at times I need The golden dawn upon the Alps, The gorges of Himalayan rock, The grey and ancient hills, the scalps Of hoary hills, the rattling shock Of avalanche adown the hills— Why, wh…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 45

The Star and the Garter

…lled delight. She showered Wit and soft laughter and desire About her breasts in bliss embowered, And subtle and devouring fire Leapt in live sparks about her limbs. Her spirit shields me, and bedims My sight: she needs me: I need her. She is mine: she calls me: sob and stir Strange pulses of old passionate Imperial ecstacies of fate. Destiny ; manhood; fear; delight; Desire; accomplishment; ere night Dipped her pale plumes to greet the sun She was not ; all is past and done. A dream? I wake from blissful sleep, But is it real? Well, I keep An …

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1903 · PDF PAGE 73

The Star and the Garter

…. Are you not ready? Let us leave This little Paris to its fate! Our friends a little while may grieve, And then forget : but we, elate, Live in a larger air : awake, Compassion in the Halls of Truth! Disdain love for love’s very sake! Take all our beauty, strength, and youth, And melt them in the crucible To that quintessence at whose gleam Gold shudders and grows dull ; expel The final dross by intimate stream Of glowing truth, our lunar light! Are you not ready? Who would stay ? Arise, O Queen, O Queen of Night! Arise, and leave the little d…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 70

The Star and the Garter

… some glints of love bestow The knowledge of what meteor wrack Trails pestilence across the sky. But we are other—you and I! So shall we live in deep content, Unchanging bliss, despise them still Groping on isle and continent 68

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